Bringer of Darkness
by nostalgia
Summary: Two parts, kinda. Anakin's night/Obi-Wan's night.
1. Bringer of Darkness

Title: Bringer of Darkness   
  
Author: nostalgia   
  
Rating: PG   
  
Categories: Bit angsty.  
  
Summary: Anakin stays up all night.   
  
Disclaima-go-go: Lucasfilm own the Jedi and all their little friends.   
  
Homepage: The semi-sequel and more can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/monkeychild/nostalgia/index.htm  
  
Feedback/Archive: Ask and ye shall receive.  
  
  
* * * * *   
  
  
On Tattoine the night is shorter. The binary stars that steal the moisture from the planet steal the darkness as well, a single sun hanging lonely in the sky after its twin has sunk beneath the impossibly flat horizon. In the narrow band of darkness astronomy will allow, come the stars. Thousands of them, and so many with planets in their care. Anakin, at nine, had imagined these planets dust-bowls like his own world, he thought of people cooked and boiled by the daylight, scavenging for water.   
  
  
Anakin had always burned easily, too fair for Tatooine. His mother made him stay indoors while the suns were out. Between the dawns and after the first sunset she let him venture outside without the ointments that made his skin tingle, without long sleeves to save his skin and get in the way. This was his time.   
  
  
The warmth left quickly when the suns were finally set, a chill to be savoured and feared. He would wrap himself deeper into the blankets and listen to the Tuskens and banthas and the ships that left Mos Espa throughout the night. He grew used to night on Tatooine.   
  
  
But Coruscant... night on Coruscant was no mere inconvenience. At night Anakin came into his own. He seemed to wake up when the sun went down, a second burst of energy to focus his mind. Obi-Wan had taught him the tricks the Jedi could use in place of sleep, and Anakin had taken them and twisted them and played with them and produced something new and wonderful of his own. Night became his playground as much as the day, because he was the Chosen One and he was Balance.   
  
  
Day was warmer and regimented and it made him feel like he belonged. Eat, meditate, train, read, eat, meditate, duel, run, eat, meditate, talk, night. Daytime was purpose and peace and perfection. Daytime was Obi-Wan.   
  
  
And then the sun would set and everything would change. Anakin, because he was the Chosen One and he was Balance, adored the differences caused simply by the planet rotating on its axis. At night the traffic still buzzed across the air, but in his own mind Anakin felt a stillness form as the other Jedi fell one by one asleep. It was soothing to feel the calm descend upon the Temple, serenity itself. It scared him a little when Obi-Wan drifted off, because Anakin always worried that his Master would never wake and that the balance would be lost.   
  
  
Obi-Wan didn't always sleep. This was worse.   
  
  
Earlier, when the night was warmer, he had heard the hiss of a door and the gentle pad of feet across wood. Anakin had been in bed, reading about speed instead of spices, and he had frozen at the sound. He wasn't supposed to be awake, he knew, and he had guilty switched off the light and pulled the covers over his head, hiding his reading under the pillow with panicked haste. He heard the door and the lightswitch, saw the red of the light through his eyelids. A sigh. Black, click, hiss. It had been close. He stared up at the ceiling, listening for his mentor. The sound of a door unlocking and sliding open came from the wrong direction, and he felt the newer, deeper silence of being alone. Obi-Wan, when finally Anakin built up the courage to check, was nowhere to be found.   
  
  
It was possible, of course. They didn't lock you in. Obi-Wan was free to come and go as he pleased. Anakin had done it himself a few times, once or twice he had even left the Temple. They asked when they saw the braid, but Anakin explained that he had permission from his Master and that was that. No one ever checked, because it was inconceiveble that an Apprentice would lie.   
  
  
But Obi-Wan was gone. Anakin was confused, then scared, then annoyed. But finally, as the hours passed, he came to accept this new isolation. This was the night, and night was there for the lonely. It was freedom. So he sat and read and practiced a little with his lightsaber and waited for his Master to return. He could ask about it in the morning, he could say a nightmare woke him. Yes, that would be perfect. He grinned, pleased by his own ingenuity.   
  
  
He opened his window as wide as it would go and leaned out into the night. Above him the clouds reflected an orange glow back onto Coruscant - the never-night of the city. Even without the cloud-cover, there were no stars on Coruscant. Anakin missed the stars - one of the reasons he loved flying in space so much. He could ignore the cold if he could gaze out at the stars. Millions and millions of them. And Obi-Wan would name them and point to the ones he had visited and promise that one day Anakin would see them too. Anakin decided that he would have an Apprentice of his own when he was a Knight and he would point to the stars and the Apprentice would love him. He was the Chosen One, and he was Balance.   
  
  
He breathed in, the air cold as it hit his lungs. It made him gasp. The night didn't ask questions and it didn't watch you all the time. If the night had Obi-Wan it would be perfect. But Obi-Wan belonged to the daytime and so Anakin needed them both and he had to close the window and go to sleep so that he would be alert enough to make Obi-Wan laugh while they ate breakfast. Anakin had a list of jokes that he had heard, written down and hidden under his bed. He brought them out, one by one, to see his Master smile.   
  
  
He read a few before he went to sleep, so that he would remember them in the morning. 


	2. Ka Faraq Gatri

Title: Ka Faraq Gatri (Follows 'Bringer of Darkness')  
  
Author: nostalgia   
  
Rated: PG-13   
  
Categories: Kind of het, with a side serving Slashiness. Ooh, angst.  
  
Summary: Obi-Wan's night.   
  
Disclaim: George Lucas owns the Jedi.   
  
Etc: What Obi-Wan got up to during 'Bringer of Darkness'.  
  
Biscuits to anyone who gets the title.   
  
_ stands in for italics.  
  
Homepage: Tempt fate at http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/monkeychild/nostalgia/index.htm  
  
Feedback/Archive: Whatever sinks your starship. (Huh?)  
  
  
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Ka Faraq Gatri was a nightmare of mirrors and pink neon. Legend had it that the original architect - a man of awards and esteem - had thrown himself from the highest window upon discovering that the interior of the club had been aligned west-to-east rather than east-to-west. His replacement, paid over the odds to compensate for the prevalent belief that the building was now cursed, had been expelled from the Architect's Guild for bringing the profession into ill-repute. Ka Faraq Gatri had history.   
  
It contrived to be exclusive, in that strange, Lower Levels meaning of the word. The management used words like 'clienetele' and 'corporate image', but then most people did, these days. 'Sleazy' was the word others used to describe "That Place".   
  
The bar - a thick, blue, thermoset monstrosity - was an 'o' in the centre of the room. With eight hundred and thirty-seven forms of alcohol (most of them legal) available, Ka Faraq Gatri could rival the very best. Obi-Wan Kenobi was determined to get drunk as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Tonight he dressed in civilian clothing and paid in unmarked currency. _A Jedi walked into a bar and..._ he tensed a little at the joke in case it was a warning, but no one said anything to him, and he felt himself begin to relax. The smoke in the air burned the back of his throat when he breathed, and the music was too loud, but he could cope with these. He needed distractions.   
  
After the second drink he had stopped worrying about what would happen if Anakin woke up and realised he was missing.   
  
Halfway through the third he started to admire the decor. It wasn't that bad really, he mused, once you got used to it. He slid his fingers back and forth along the edge of the bar, spun a little on the barstool, which shook as his weight shifted on it.   
  
He remembered coming here with Qui-Gon on his nineteenth birthday and and throwing up outside as the alcohol churned in his bloodstream. He remembered screaming and swearing and crying and wishing he was dead. That wasn't going to happen to Anakin. Obi-Wan wasn't going to be lectured about giving his Padawan alcohol poisoning. He was going to be responsible and trustworthy. He was going to be a role-model. Just not tonight.   
  
He remembered sitting at one of the tables in the corner, a semi-expensive prostitute draping herself over him because Qui-Gon thought that was a good way to teach his Apprentice about sex. He remembered the perfume and the warmth and the blushes. He wasn't going to do something like that to Anakin. Anakin wasn't supposed to be cheapened like that. You couldn't just leave the Chosen One at the mercy of some whore in Ka Faraq Gatri. Anakin was too good for that. He was delicate and vulnerable and beautiful and... Drink. Now. He reached for the nearest distraction.   
  
She was cheaper than the last one, a little younger. She was laughing and she had nice eyes and she didn't look too much like Anakin. _A Jedi walked into a bar and..._ Obi-Wan laughed and let her lead him to a back room, stumbling a little as he tried not to bump into too many people. He leaned against the wall as she unlocked the door, trying to tell her a joke about a priest and an astromech droid. He got lost halfway to the punchline, but she giggled anyway and pulled him through the doorway and onto the bed.   
  
  
It was still dark when he felt distracted enough leave. He stepped around the puddles that had formed outside the bar while he had been inside and out of the rain. He looked down at his own reflection in one of them, saw the bright pink letters glowing above and behind him. The sign fizzed over his head and another one of the vowels went dark. They should fix that, he thought absently, and headed home. 


End file.
